A RUSSIAN-BORN artist, who creates much of her work on an iPad, has been announced as the first winner of a new annual award from Cirencester Arts Society.
Nadja Ryzhakova won the inaugural John Benjamin Palmer Memorial Trophy for the best painting by a member of the society.
The award was named after a former member who died in June 2014 and presented by renowned artist Jake Sutton at his Fairford-based gallery.
Jake, a graduate of St Martin’s School of Art, has been exhibiting in London since 1979, and critiqued each the competition’s 40 entrants’ work personally.

He said: “Nadja was given the award for the two paintings she submitted.
“The qualities I admired were firstly the attack and confident handling of paint in her landscape and secondly the originality and successful use of paint and collage in the self-portrait.
“These works combined to reveal a considerable talent and I wish her well with future work.”
Cirencester-based Nadja moved to the area last year and works from her home studio in experimental mixed media, combining painting with stitching as well as traditional acrylic and oil painting.

She graduated in 2009 in Moscow with a degree in monumental-decorative art production, moving to London in 2010 where she discovered the iPad as a creative medium.
iPad art has since become her new form of artistic engagement, which she defines as ‘iPainting’.
Since then she has been recognised by the national press and TV, as well as various art organisations, and runs a series of Workshops on iPainting in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
She said: “Jake Sutton is a man of genius.
“Fabulous drawings and paintings. I am so happy I had this chance to meet him in person. It was very inspirational for me.”
For more information about Nadja’s work visit: www.ipainting.pro